Much has been written criticising the concept of “gender identity,” however, the concept is already changing into “gender incongruence.” Arguably, unless one takes control of the language used to describe this issue, the idea that cross-sex identification is explained by literally having a trapped “essence”/”gender identity”/”gender” of the opposite sex (also known as the “Feminine Essence Narrative“), will continue to evade criticism.
This article therefore advocates for the term “cross-sex identity disorder” to replace “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria” to describe the phenomenon of “persistent cross-sex identification accompanied by persistent discomfort with one’s sex” (to use the description from the DSM-4). It follows the logic of other terminology, such as “cross-sex hormones.”
The article advocates for this terminology for two reasons: 1) to provide an alternative framing to the current narrative that cross-sex identification is a matter of a “trapped” “gender identity” and 2) to signal to schools, charities, and non-governmental organisations that it is not an appropriate topic to teach indiscriminately to children.
Challenging the belief in “gender identity”
Today, there is a belief in society, that disorders of cross-sex identity are caused by a person literally being in some way the opposite sex, that they have a male or female “gender identity.”
This is in contrast to how the issue was seen a few decades ago, when the DSM-4 called the phenomenon of persistent cross-sex identification “gender identity disorder,” with “gender” arguably meaning a polite synonym for “sex.” As Dr Ray Blanchard noted, “…Before the word “gender” became so fraught, it was easy to use it as a synonym for “sex,” which it was then on its way to becoming.”
The term “gender identity disorder,” or as this article prefers, “cross-sex identity disorder” allows for multiple possibilities as to why someone may identify as the opposite sex and multiple possible outcomes.
Today, in comparison, the current model of “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria” puts forward a person’s “gender identity” as something to be unconditionally affirmed, with the only requirement remaining to treat their “gender dysphoria” on demand. Arguably, this affirmation-only care was always the goal.
In the DSM-5, cross-sex identification became framed in terms of “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria”. Dr Blanchard, who served on the subcommittee on gender identity disorders, observed that “The DSM-5 language was deliberately altered to be more agreeable to trans activists, while keeping GID in the DSM to enable 3rd-party insurance coverage. All members of the Subworkgroup were to varying degrees advocates for trans people, not cold-blooded clinical researchers.” Since the publication of the DSM-5, activists have pushed a specific interpretation of “gender identity” as being a type of internal “essence” of being male or female.
In the book “Trouble with Gender” Alex Byrne covers this change in meaning of “gender identity,” from being a concept used to describe the developmental stage of children when they come to recognise what sex they are, to the belief that suggests transsexuals are in some way literally the opposite sex: e.g. “a transgender woman is an adult natal male with a female gender identity.” Byrne concludes, “core gender identity, the ‘sense of knowing to which sex one belongs,’ is universal. It is not, however, gender identity as it figures in the received account of being ‘trans’ or ‘cis’: that kind of gender identity is a myth.” This myth of a “trapped” “gender identity” nevertheless has now become the accepted explanation behind cross-sex identification, despite it being far from “the truth about trans.”
Today, any suggestion of safeguarding is cast as an inappropriate intrusion into what is framed as a matter of personal “gender identity.” However, this has created a dangerous situation, where the multiple possibilities why someone might identify as the opposite sex are left with only one possible outcome: unconditional affirmation based on the premise of having the “trapped” “gender identity” of the opposite sex.
A social contagion
The framing of matters of cross-sex identification in terms of a “trapped” “gender identity” has captured the public imagination, as the public have come to believe that there are some people who literally have an “essence” or “gender identity” of the opposite sex. Nevertheless, it can be seen that teaching this myth indiscriminately to children is causing a social contagion, as more and more children, primarily girls, are being referred to “gender identity” clinics as they have come to believe that they have the “gender identity” of the opposite sex.
Abigail Shrier has covered how teaching children about mental health disorders can induce social contagion:
Offer a school assembly on one teen’s suicide and you will raise awareness, possibly at the cost of more suicide. The same goes for depression and cutting. And now trans identification. A small number of students in every school are perhaps naturally gender confused or gender dysphoric. If you make them the subject of an assembly, you will spread confusion. (“Irreversible Damage”, p. 254.) Shrier is in turn quoted by Dr Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist, in an interview:
This top-down mandated belief that confusion around gender identity… I knew that for every person that saved, that would doom a thousand people, primarily girls, to a kind of psychological contagion, as confusion about sex and gender identity ramped up. I knew the literature on psychological contagion? This is almost all amongst girls, as teenage girls are the most prone to this? If you throw in categorical confusion, which is exactly what you’re doing when you declare that there is an endless number of gender identities, then people who are prone to identity dissociation and to psychogenic contagion – you’re going to demolish them. Abigail Shrier has documented that? perhaps a few people who are transgender benefited from this new reality, but for ever one who has benefited, and I’d like to see the data on just how much they actually benefited? there’s a thousand people who have just been demolished by this. Despite what is known about social contagion, and teaching children about mental health conditions, charities, schools and non-governmental organisations offer the myth of cross-sex identification as being a matter of a “trapped” “gender identity” to children in schools as fact. In the UK, the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) teaches children that “For many people, their gender identity corresponds to the sex they were registered at birth. For others, it does not.” From my own private correspondence with the NSPCC, they, and many others, have come to truly believe that some children are innately “trans,” and that those children have a “gender identity” that does not correspond to their “sex assigned at birth.”
In the UK, the Charity Commission, which is the regulatory body tasked with overseeing charities, say that they “lack the expertise and knowledge of complicated psychological and medical issues connected to gender identities,” to oversee what charities are teaching to children. There is nobody, therefore, in a position of responsibility to ensure that what charities are teaching children regarding psychology and “changing … parts of [one’s] body” is based on medical research, appropriate for children or even the truth.
Arguably, the activists who wanted their medical condition treated like a matter of personal identity, have been remarkably successful in achieving this by framing cross-sex identification into a matter of “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria.” However, this has come at a great cost of a social contagion amongst children, who, had they been born in any previous generation, would never have come to question their sex in this way.
A signal It is clear from the current social contagion that teaching children indiscriminately about “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria” cannot continue. This article therefore argues that one way of stopping this is, is to reframe “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria” once again into “cross-sex identity disorder,” as a clarification of what is described in the DSM-4.
This would signal to schools, charities, and non-governmental organisations, that this is not an appropriate topic that they should be teaching indiscriminately to children; no more than we would teach children indiscriminately about Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), which in itself can be also be observed as a social contagion.
Language as thought
In “1984” George Orwell wrote that when you control what words people use, then you can control how they think, (“In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”). The meaning behind the terminology of “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria,” was arguably created with deliberate intent by activists, to frame what is a medical condition into a matter of personal identity and something solely to be affirmed.
The terminology of “cross-sex identity disorder,” “matters of cross-sex identification”, etc. aims to reject the framing of “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria.” It offers an active, rather than reactive, criticism of the narrative that cross-sex identification is a matter of a trapped “essence”/”gender identity”/”gender” of the opposite sex, or something else entirely.
The terminology sends a signal to charities, schools and non-governmental organisations that this is not a subject that should be being taught indiscriminately to children, therefore removing the fuel from the fire of the current social contagion of children who have come to believe they have the “gender identity” of the opposite sex.
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